Women in the Australian town planning movement 1900

Women in the Australian town planning movement 1900–1950

Freestone, Robert

This paper attempts an historical survey of women in the early Australian town planning movement. In the 1910s and 1920s voluntary town planning associations provided the main organizational base for women activists. A handful of women attained state, even national prominence, notably Florence Taylor and Marion Mahony Griffin. The 1930s failed to build on earlier gains, but the era of post‐war reconstruction saw a renaissance in activity, setting precedents for a process of professionalization which has continued to the present day. There are strong historical parallels with the American experience, with women's major contributions up to the second world war being mainly intellectual, educational and administrative, with an overall emphasis on the domestic realm. The interest of women in planning was historically legitimized around certain ‘sociological’ issues through the study period. By the 1940s one strand had crystallized around a prescient feminist critique of Australian suburbia.